Indicators of Social Quality: Outcomes of the European Scientific Network

In October 2001, the Network Indicators of Social Quality started the process of creating social quality indicators. This project of the European Foundation on Social Quality was supported by the European Commission (DG Research) under Framework Programme 5 (van der Maesen et al. 2000). The Network consisted of representatives of universities from 14 partner countries and two European NGOs. Over its fortytwo-month life the Network held four meetings. Three plenary meetings were organised with all assistants thanks to the financial support by the Dutch Scientific Foundation (NWO). Also through the creation of unique national reference groups on social quality, the Network has engaged more than a hundred scientists and policy makers in its work. The project was completed in April 2005. The intriguing question was how to theoretically legitimise the choice of social quality indicators compared to the indicators constructed in the context of ‘quality of life’ approaches, as developed for example by ZUMA of the University of Mannheim (Noll 2000; Berger-Schmit et al. 2000) and the European Foundation on the Improvement of Working and Living Conditions in Dublin (Fahey et al. 2002). Contributors to the social quality approach argue, that while respect for differences and the openness of the future can be seen as the main themes of the intellectual debate among the social theorists and philosophers, the mainstream of the behavioural sciences has turned its empirical interest to individual perspectives on ‘quality of life’. This can be seen as a way to address the question what ‘the’ quality of life might be from a scientific perspective, trying to avoid political and normative issues. This research has been conducted worldwide and produced numerous descriptions of ‘quality of life’. As can be gathered from the many of thousand of titles of publications (cf. the website of the Australian Centre on Quality of Life, of Deakin University). Impressive in quantitative output as the research paradigm appears to be, it shows, overwhelmingly the many different